to this day, i still don't understand the explanation for why the other evanuris are not involved? as in, why they didn't escape the fade as well? because by the games logic, the archdemons were basically their horcruxes, and even in game, killing the dragons doesn't automatically kill elgar'nan and ghilan'nain - it just weakens them and you have to kill them afterwards as well? so, by that logic, the other evanuris are still alive? just weakened by losing their archdemons? but somehow, according to the devs, they just up and died? what? why? how?
I’m pretty sure the argument is that the Evanuris did not die simply because their archdemons were slain—it’s that the Veil was absorbing their magical essence/life-force in order to maintain itself. While their archdemons were alive, the Evanuris were still effectively undying, even with the slowlaspe of their power. When the archdemons were slain by the Grey Wardens, the piece of the Evanuris’ soul that they absorbed was destroyed with them.
Think about how Corypheus did not automatically died when we killed his red lyrium dragon. But slaying his dragon, he rendered his spirit in only one mortal body that could be destroyed. That is what occured with Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain. Since they were no longer tied in essence with the Veil, their essence and magical energies were not drained. Meanwhile, Andruil and the others who remained prior to the Dragon Age died from their essence being absorbed to maintain the Veil.
I guess that makes sense. I just wish it was explained better (but I guess thats 99% of things in the game). Retrospectively, a lot of things are FINE in theory, but just poorly executed. I feel like I don't even know what the lore is anymore, because it just feels so convoluted and not in a good way. But maybe thats just me 🤷
to this day, i still don't understand the explanation for why the other evanuris are not involved? as in, why they didn't escape the fade as well? because by the games logic, the archdemons were basically their horcruxes, and even in game, killing the dragons doesn't automatically kill elgar'nan and ghilan'nain - it just weakens them and you have to kill them afterwards as well? so, by that logic, the other evanuris are still alive? just weakened by losing their archdemons? but somehow, according to the devs, they just up and died? what? why? how?
so i don't go here much anymore but its been a year since VG dropped and i thought i'd go back and try and play the other games and ... i hate that its just not the same. There are moments where I can forget about the existence of VG entirely and enjoy them but then I get faced with important decisions like who drank from the well or turning cole more spirit or human and i'm just left there thinking "why am i agonising over this? it literally doesn't matter" 😞
“I would treasure the chance to be wrong once again, my friend.”
This, this right here is where VG screwed the pooch because this was the set up for him to change his mind and to put down his proverbial sword and turn around.
But then he DIDN'T
What does it matter how he feels about it if it never results in actionable change? If in the end it's MYTHAL who decides he's free to stop.
He was on the road in Trespasser. We were setting it up. A high approval or romanced inquisitor should have been able to tip the scale in the final scene.
But no. If anything they regressed him VG because he kills a friend, uses bloodmagic in a way that is honestly really cruel, and he doesn't seem to really acknowledge or question himself about it at all. It's almost like all the work that was started was undone.
He didn't need to kill Varric. He had already killed Felassan and it had a huge impact on him, I think him NOT killing Varric and maybe that being why his ritual failed and him second guessing himself again would have been a show that there'd been some change in him, some progress towards him trying to break free of his self imposed duty.
And Bioware can write redemption arcs, they did it for Blackwall. Where he's inspired by the inquisitor and actively turns himself in and redeems himself. We see the change as it happens, we see the benefit of that change after he's redeemed.
That's why it's such a huge slap when Solas not only doesn't get that kind of redemption, despite all of the set up for it, but any steps he had been making towards that redemption get swept under the rug and in the end it's not even in his own hands, it's in Mythal's.
And that’s what makes his character and the conclusion to his story feel incredibly underwhelming, I think. He had an opportunity to change. He had the opportunity to be (influenced and convinced, yes) but overall, he had the ability to be able to grow as a character and change his mind through his own accord. With a gentle (or harsh) nudge, yes, but I feel like the choice to change, to want to change, l should have been his in the very end.
And that’s why this doesn’t feel like redemption, because Solas here just feels completely powerless—everything is just happening to him and he just goes along with it because why? It doesn’t feel like he genuinely wants redemption tbh—it feels more so like he’s just being backed into the corner and feels like he has no choice but to want it. And that just feels … cheap. It such an underwhelming, unsatisfying, and frankly depressing conclusion for such a well-written and complex character.
I don’t think it’s out his character to do bad things—but like I’ve said before, it feels like these things were done with the intention of making us see him in more villainous and antagonistic light, and very little else. So they feel kind of hamfisted in there and don’t really serve a purpose in the narrative outside of making us hate him.
I actually really like the idea of his ritual failing because he faltered just that little bit too much in regards to killing Varric. And no matter what comes after that, that’s at least something to cling to: that actually, he’s not completely irredeemable. He’s actually worth trying to save if that’s what you want to try and do.
Unfortunately, they regressed his character so much that there essentially no more grey areas in terms of his character—or anything in the game for that matter. There’s only black and white lines that everything has to exist inside—and I think that’s why Solas feels underwhelming here, because he never has existed in those lines before. He’s redemption was essentially bringing down the Veil—but oh no, bringing the Veil is bad because reasons. People will die, but we don’t actually know the extent of that. We just have to take it on faith that it’s bad because the writers said so.
It doesn’t help that he was essentially sidelined for the majority of the game and we had like ten minutes in the end to try and resolve his entire storyline. So I think trying to do it in a way that was satisfying would have been a feat for anyone to achieve. And yeah, it really does feel like anything that came before, all the relationships he had in the Inquisition, from the Inquisitor to the companions themselves, even his own growth as a character, were pointless because it’s Mythal that stays his hand in the end. Not him stopping himself because all the people that he’s met since waking in this world, that he considers fundamentally broken by his hand, have helped him to see a better way, to change his mind. And that’s honestly really unsatisfying, in the end imo.
Bioware wrote themselves into a corner when they narratively tied Solas's story to the Inquisitor in the way they did and didn't finish it off in DAI.
Even under the best circumstances, I don't believe there was a way to handle them well as a NPC, but they couldn't just leave them out either because as the devs themselves put it the Inquisitor is essential to his story.
So we end up with VG's walking plot device
I think Trespasser is a fantastic DLC. But I’ve always thought it existed within such a strange dichotomy of itself. Because the writing is very good, but at the same time, so blissfully unaware of itself. I would give my left kidney just to talk to the people who wrote it and ask “how could you possibly think that you wrote this in a way that clearly says that the Inquisitor’s story is DONE?” I know I go on and on about this but I just don’t get it.
In making them an NPC, I don’t think they could have eve 100% satisfied everyone. The problem is, it’s not a just a few people that think the Inquisitor should have been the protagonist—it’s a good portion of the fandom (especially outside of the toxic positivity of vacuum that is a lot of fans on tumblr) that think this. I waver between “I would have preferred the Inquisitor wasn’t involved at all” and “at least they were somewhat included.” Because option A doesn’t make any sense. But option B was so incredibly underwhelming and actually insulting if you consider the fact that they were just given the “one-size fits all” treatment. Maybe a hot take, but I would have preferred if they had just died at the end of Trespasser. At least then we wouldn’t be stuck with either option A or B—because they both suck.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—I like the concept of Rook. I like the Rook in my head. But the way they were incorporated into the story (their lack of personality not withstanding) is honestly one of the worst protagonist handovers I’ve ever seen. With a little more effort, it could have been accomplished, or at the very least made the fact that the Inquisitor should have been the PC a lot less evident. But, if anything, the Rook that we got just reinforced that it should have been the Inquisitor all along for me.
I do have to wonder, where was Trick Weekes in all of this? They were still the main writer for Solas as far as I know. Did they really have no input to do something to curb Elper's raging hate boner?
You would think they had some input at the very least, yeah? You would think they would see the way that the writing was going and go “actually maybe we just tone down the Solas hate just a little, or at least maintain consistency in regards to what his character has already been portrayed and established to be, regardless of whether people love him or hate him.” But who even knows 🤷🏻♀️ Even if they did say something, or argue against the writing, it obviously didn’t translate to much in the end.
The game went out of its way to make Solas as unlikeable as possible. It almost worked on me. I actually felt gaslit by the version of Solas I was seeing bc there was nothing of the kindness or compassion or nuance he'd shown in Inquisition. There was no person there, just a shell of what used to be a character. DAV was written by people who did not care about their fans or the characters they wrote.
As much as it pains me to admit, this is also where I’m at with Solas’ character. I can’t consider VG Solas Solas, because he isn’t. Or, at the very least, he’s only one side of him and that feels like a vast oversimplification of and injustice to his character. I, too, was almost fooled admittedly, and in retrospect, I 100% accredit that to GDL’s voice-acting.
But Solas, in the way that he was written as a character (especially when compared to his DAI and Trespasser writing) felt … hollow. I don’t think Solas was necessarily badly written here, if that makes sense. In fact, I think he’s probably one of the better, if not the best written character in the whole game (which is a low bar, admittedly) but my point is, his writing overall was okay. He had some nicely written lines and well-written moments. He’s still probably a decently written antagonist overall. However, I think a lot of that comes from our previous knowledge of him (I’d be curious to know if any new players thought similarly or differently). I still think he was, like you said, the shell of the character that we know.
Whether you love him or hate him, I feel like the drop in quality when it comes to his writing was very evident, in the end. Just like it was with everything else in this game.
Yeah, I don't know (well, I do, smh) why people implied it was just Solas' fans attacking epler. He apparently had threats from everyone imaginable and said that it wasn't Solavellans (or at least not a targeted attack solely of them, like certain people claim). And this makes sense considering that almost everyone hated the AMA.
Exactly? Everyone and their mother hated that AMA so I don’t know why Solavellans got the blame for this? It seems to me like people want someone to blame though, and instead of blaming the devs, BioWare, and EA, it’s easier to blame other fans, and specifically Solavellans for some reason? Perhaps because it felt to them that we were being pandered to with this game (we weren’t and I really don’t get why anyone would think that—slightly more content that’s as equally shit as everything else in this game is not being “pandered to” and I would have preferred nothing honestly). But whatever. I’m honestly at the point where I don’t really care to know or want to interact the majority of this fandom in general 🤷🏻♀️
I hate to say it but after VG and seeing how Solavellans are being treated by the devs I almost wish Solas hadn't been romanceable. I've seen so many great fanfics and headcanons that are 1000x better than what we got in the game and all of the drama around him being race and gender locked wouldn't be a thing.
Lowkey I hate that my experience with DA has made me step back and go...maybe making this a romanceable character was a mistake bc I wanted it soooo bad. But honestly what we got wasn't much different from high approval Solas and the ending they gave it in VG was....bad.
The thing that upsets me the most is that Solas is … exactly where he started. The entire world of Thedas is exactly where it started, tbh, but Solas is essentially left trapped in this endless cycle of abuse. And the worst part is: he’s not even aware of it! Because he still thinks Mythal is somehow infallible. There’s no indication that Solas sees his and Mythal’s relationship as problematic or abusive in VG at all even though there are strong indications that it was (and if there is, they’re so small that I must have missed them).
And I do love Solas. But sometimes, yeah, I wish that he hadn’t been romanceable either if this is what we’re left with. Who knew he’d be so damn polarising—to the point where I don’t even want to discuss him because you know, you just know, someone is going to come along and ridicule you for liking him. It seems to be the price of liking him and seeing his character in a sympathetic light, unfortunately.
The worst part is I don’t even think making him not romanceable would have changed anything. Because they fundamentally ruined (perhaps too strong a word but it kinda feels like it tbh) his character, with or without the romance. The Solavellan ending is honestly just an another cut in the thousand cuts that is this game.
Overall, as much as I love Solas, I do objectively lean towards the sentiment that making him romanceable was a mistake. He’s too important a character to the story—and if they weren’t going to do the romance right, they shouldn’t have bothered including it in the first place imo. That and it would have saved us all this frankly exhausting fandom discourse over all the merits and pitfalls of his character.
Saw your posts about the topic and I gotta ask - is it fair to compare Leliana's relationship with Justina to Solas' relationship to Mythal? While I understand we haven't seen as much as we should have to fully grasp her character, Mythal was clearly presented as alot more power hungry and downright abusive compared to Justina, especially given the latter had so many regrets in regards to how she treated Leliana(to the point that her lingering spirit got the Inquisitor, pass on an apology to Leliana) even though the situation she was in REALLY could have had her try and excuse what she did.
Hmm, well, I think it’s definitely fair to say that Justinia wasn’t as bad as Mythal. But I think, over all, the dynamics were the same, if that makes sense? And what I mean by this is that both Solas and Leliana essentially became a weapon to someone else—someone who they loved and saw as a friend, a mentor.
So that’s more what I mean when I say Leliana would understand Solas and feel compassion towards him—she would understand the price of loving and trusting someone so much, perhaps blindly, that you lose yourself to become what they need you to be.
But, if we want to get down into the nitty-gritty of it—I think it’s safe to say, that when it comes down to it, they were both turned into “weapons” for vastly different purposes.
I think Justinia had good intentions. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions and I think she knew that. Leliana even says that “all this time, Justinia carried the fear that she was using me.” So I think she knew what she was doing and she did feel remorse for doing it—but she still did it because she needed Leliana. Leliana even says that Justinia knew no one could have done what she did.
Now, Mythal, on the hand … It’s difficult for me to talk about Mythal, because I somewhat struggle to correlate the Mythal that we got to the Mythal the writing was building her up to. Because the Mythal in VG is indicated to be an abuser in this dynamic—but unlike Justinia, it feels vindictive and without remorse. Though I think it’s fair to say that Mythal is potentially also a abuse victim as well and this is just the cycle perpetuating itself. Although that’s not really evident in the narrative itself—more so where I wish they were going. Because it’s difficult to feel sympathy for this portrayal of Mythal. I always did in the past, but by essentially declawing her, they’ve somehow turned her into a character that’s difficult to sympathise with. Because her actions aren’t coming from a place of pain or even anger—they feel senselessly cruel.
I think it’s fair to say that the things Mythal did to Solas (as far as we know) were potentially worse. He was coerced from the Fade into taking a body and there’s evidence to believe (such as Cole) that he would have initially been like a child in nature—and therefore somewhat naive to what would become of him and the circumstances of their relationship. So when you think about it like that, it does feel … ickier than Justinia/Leliana. Then again, I’m only going off the implications that VG gave us.
But overall, I don’t think it’s so much of a stretch to compare these two relationships, in end. Because, in the end, they were both used by people who they trusted, and the consequence of that turned them both into people they didn’t want to be.
So I guess the question in the end is: what’s worse? Knowing you’re using someone for your own purposes, feeling remorse even for doing it, but still doing it—just as Justinia did? Or, using someone, knowing it’s wrong, and feeling little remorse or no about it—like Mythal?
You know what still makes me kind of mad?
That drinking from the well of sorrows went literally nowhere.
It's not even mentioned again. All that drama and build up for what? Zilch. Bupkiss. Nada.
It honestly blows my mind that the Well of Sorrows wasn’t EVEN ONE of the THREE measly little choices that we got. Not that the ones we did get meant much in the end, anyway. But they built it up to be this mysterious choice with unforeseen consequences and it was SO disappointing that those consequences weren’t explored like at all? Not even a little bit? The choice itself is literally the embodiment of something being the “illusion of choice.” Except it’s not even an illusion of choice—it straight up doesn’t matter at all.
I wanted to know so badly where it would lead. Would the drinker turn on Rook? Would they become Mythal’s new host? Her slave? Would it be like an unwilling/willing possession depending on your choices? And, depending on your choices—could they die? Could you find a way to free them from Mythal’s influence, or would you have no choice but to kill them in the end? What purpose would Mythal use them for? Would they slowly lose themselves to the voices? Would it progressively get worse and worse until they could no longer block them out?
I'm not even kidding i just sent you the ask about people's opinions on romances in video games and how their dislike of them eventually seeps into misogyny and their own morals on sexuality and...as I'm about to close out of the tab I used as a reference I see the person call women slurs and say they're addicted to sex...somehow not the worst things they said.
Liking romance = sex addiction. Apparently. Because that makes sense 🫠 I feel like people need to broaden their definition of romance because if romance exclusively = sex then that’s a pretty warped perspective to have.
I've been seeing a lot of posts about people's feelings on romances in video games. One one hand, a lot of people have some really good points about how in most current romances, it feels like the objective is to sleep with character and like a checklist rather than a romance, and how some studios are only including them to make more money. However, when you look more deeply into their posts, some of them will sprinkle in bits of superiority to others for not “caring for romances” and even some very prudish comments regarding romances. I think a lot of them do not realize that their posts tend to sound a bit...judgmental and at worst demeaning, misogynistic, and puritanical to those who enjoy romances in any form of media. I don’t need romances in anything for me to find enjoyment and I do find myself uncomfortable during some, but to shame others, feels...well, I know I exactly what it is as someone who happens to play a lot of video games with romances within them (including VNs, indie or not), it’s internalized misogyny because romances and the genre of romances within all forms of media is associated with women. These discussions aren’t new and almost always tend to lean into censorship, whether or not that is many of these people’s true intentions. I understand where a lot of them are coming from because I do not care how explicit romances get and would rather have a well crafted romance, with or without physical intimacy, the issue in their posts lie in how they treat their feelings on the matter. They tend to ridicule others for being interested in romances, to the point of hypocrisy considering many of these same people have gushed about romances in games. They are allowed to consume romances because they do it "normally", but others? To them, they’re freaks who are allowed to be made fun of and shamed.
I think this tends to be a universal sentiment, anon, unfortunately. If you like romance, no one will take you seriously. And if you don’t, there always seems to be this superiority that comes with it (at least in my experience, I’m sure there are people who just don’t genuinely care for it). But there’s definitely a unspoken stigma over it, I feel.
I don’t really understand it, tbh. It might be (and this is just my opinion here) that this stigmatisation comes from the way our society is shaped as a whole. In todays day, it feels like we’re so disconnected from each other on an emotional level, and there’s this emphasis (especially towards women) that being “distant” and “guarded” is how we should be, because enjoying things like romance is considered “soft” and “weak.”
This is, like you said, evident across all forms of media—not just video games. For some reason, “strong female characters” always seem to equate to “distant, guarded, mistrusting, and hard.” And I’m not saying there aren’t females like this in real life. It’s more so that this seems to be the predominant portrayal that retrospectively emphasises how being the opposite is a signifier of weakness. And this includes things such as enjoying romance.
Honestly, I’ve experienced this simply from posting about certain characters that I’ve romanced—specifically Solas. It’s like, because I’m a woman who romanced him, I can’t separate the two and I’m incapable of forming any intelligent or nuanced opinion outside of that romance, or my appreciation of him as a character.
So when you say “internalised misogyny” yeah. Because I’ve seen it be done and had it be done to me personally—where liking romance = a women’s hyperfixation of a certain character (usually a male character) that renders her incapable of having anything of value to add to anything. Not to mention the ridiculing that happens because of this—which I won’t repeat because there’s honestly no point. But overall, if it’s not coming from a place of misogyny, it’s at the very least extremely frustrating, condensing, and demeaning, as well as hypocritical. Because, yeah, I’ve seen people hate on others for liking a romance and then do the exact same thing by liking a romance—the only difference is that it’s okay for them to do because they it’s them, or because they deem that romance or the way they approach as “acceptable.” They don’t understand the sentiment “treat others how you yourself would want to be treated” even if you don’t agree. It’s easier to just be cruel and shame others that don’t see things the way you do 🤷🏻♀️
If you add a romance to a game you don't get to make fun of fans for perusing it. It's like offering chocolate cake at a buffet and then laughing people for liking chocolate, c'mon.
It so weird?? Like, honestly, why give us the option to romance a character if you’re just going to a) not do the ending any justice and actually completely retrospectively taint the entire romance (at least for me, it hasn’t ruined it per say but it’s definitely not the same) and b) treat fans like idiots for liking it? I’m convinced that Lavellan’s characterisation is how they see Solavellans. I was somewhat willing to give Epler the benefit of the doubt despite some of his very questionable comments—but that datamine just completely erased whatever understanding I might have had. It all just feels so unnecessarily spiteful. Then again, that seems to be the climate of the fandom itself at the moment.
snowghoul
titsay
baratheonpilled
dailybridgerton
gummygunk
yousharknotpass
prguitarman
